Red Curry Chicken with Butternut Squash Noodles

You sometimes have to be really adaptable when you cook. Cooking, like life, sometimes just doesn't go as planned. Ingredients mysteriously disappear, or spoil seemingly overnight. Plans change at the last minute and the meal you thought you had an hour to prepare needs to be on the table in 30 minutes flat, or you find a key ingredient that you planned to pick up after work is suddenly not available. Take tonight's dinner for instance. I had some skinless boneless thighs from a new poultry supplier at work called Blue Goose, (amazing company by the way, worth checking out, the chicken was awesome!) I was intending to use these lovely chicken thighs in a green chicken curry, to top some zucchini noodles made with my spiral slicer. But, there were no lovely little zucchinis gracing the shelves at work today in our produce department. I ran thru a bunch of alternatives, but had no inspiration until I walked by the display of beautiful organic butternut squash. If you can spiral slice a green summer squash, why not an orange winter one?? The texture seemed like it would go, but it added a new dilemma. The green curry that I had originally planned just didn't seem to match this squash, flavour wise, so my whole entire recipe had to change on the fly. The green curry became red, and the creamy coconut sauce with fresh basil suddenly became a wonderfully spicy and fresh coconut and tomato sauce. I threw in some baby organic spinach on a last minute whim, and this amazing dish was born. It is guaranteed to be a repeat, it was absolutely delicious. 

I guess the moral of the story is, don't stress it, and go with the flow. Like life, cooking is much better when you can relax and enjoy it. Be prepared for a little bit of improv, and you just might be pleasantly surprised!

Butternut squash noodles are the perfect base for a recipe like this. They added just a touch of sweetness and held up incredibly well, as well as being seriously easy to prepare. I can’t wait to see what else I can do with them!  I apologize for the lack of pictures with this post, but I promise to come back and add a picture the next time I spiral a butternut squash.

Red Curry Chicken with Butternut Squash Noodles

12 Skinless Boneless Organic Chicken Thighs (try Blue Goose)

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 tbsp butter (or sub another tbsp coconut oil)

½ of a 400 ml can full fat coconut milk (shake to mix)

1 large red onion, cut in a fairly large dice.

2-4 tsp red curry paste (I use Thai Kitchen)

½ cup water

1 796 ml can diced organic tomatoes

4 cups baby spinach, lightly packed

Salt and pepper to taste

Squash Noodles:

1 medium organic butternut squash

1 tbsp coconut oil, melted

Salt to taste.

To prepare the squash noodles:

Cut the bulb end off the squash (the end that contains the seeds) and reserve for another use if desired. Cut the stem end off, and with a sharp knife or vegetable peeler remove all of the skin. Slice in half lengthwise, and cut into noodles on the spiral slicer, or with a mandolin.

Spread cut noodles out on a large pan with sides, like a jelly roll pan.  Drizzle with the melted coconut oil, sprinkle with salt and toss lightly to coat.

Preheat oven to 400F and set noodles aside. (do not cook yet!!)

To prepare the chicken:

In a large cast iron pan, heat the butter and coconut oil till bubbly over medium high heat. Add the chicken, Season with salt and pepper, and cook, in batches if necessary, until just nicely starting to brown, turning pieces as they cook. (They do not need to be cooked right thru at this point, almost-done is fine because they will finish cooking in the sauce at the end, and will only hang around for a wee bit before going back in.) Turn the pan down to low and leave it on the burner.  Remove the chicken pieces to a cutting board when nicely browned, and carefully but quickly cut into bite sized chunks. Place in a bowl to catch any juices, and set aside for a minute.

Your oven should be preheated by now, so throw in the squash noodles, and put a timer on for 9 minutes. If they finish before the next step is complete, just turn off the oven and leave them in, they should be done around close to the same time.

Turn your pan back up to medium high, add the diced onion, and the red curry paste. Sauté until the onion is starting to soften and brown slightly, 3-4 minutes. Add the can of diced tomatoes and the water, and stir in, scraping all the browned bits off the bottom of the pan as you go. Add the coconut milk, stir well, and add in the chunks of chicken and any accumulated juices. Stir well, bring to a boil and simmer until the chicken is cooked thru and the sauce has reduced and thickened slightly, 5-6 minutes.  Add the spinach and stir in until it is wilty. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper if necessary.

Remove the noodles from the oven, place in individual bowls and top with chicken curry mixture. It should serve 5 or 6 hungry people!

Oven Roasted Tomato, Onion and Garlic Sauce

This post  is pretty typical of how I create a lot of my recipes. If I have a plethora of something to use up, I usually throw something together to use up whatever that plethora may be. This time of year there is always an excess in the garden just begging to be used. Tomatoes were the needy ingredient of the day, and with the fruit fly invasion that has been plaguing my kitchen, time was of the essence! The ingredients won’t have exact measurements, but I will try and give a general idea of how much to use. The tomatoes were not any specific kind, I used some of every type in our garden, from the “tiny tim” cherries to the larger red ones that have no name, (I think there was even one green zebra!) So, not your typical sauce tomatoes, but any should work just fine!

This sauce is pretty fuss free, no peeling/blanching/straining required, just some time to roast in the oven, a perfect way to warm up the kitchen on a cool fall morning. The roasted onions add a nice body to the sauce, no need to boil it down for thickness. This is an awesome technique for peeling garlic that you have to try. I will warn you it is loud, but when you are peeling multiple cloves, it is a real time saver! All in all, an easy sauce with great roasted flavour.

Served over zucchini noodles, with
meatballs and a grain free biscuit.

Oven Roasted Tomato, Onion and Garlic Sauce

Tomatoes, (when chopped up, mine made a nice single layer on two cookie sheets)

Garlic (approx 8-9 cloves)

Onions (12 smallish onions, or 3-4 regular sized yellow cooking onions)

Coconut oil, melted (enough to give a drizzle to both pans)

Salt to taste

1 tsp Coconut sugar (optional, but rounds out the flavour)

Preheat oven to 425F, and line 2 large cookie sheets with parchment paper. 

these are what I consider a "smallish" onion

Chop your tomatoes (the tiny cherry tomatoes I left whole) into smaller chunks (see picture below for clarification).

Peel and chop your onions into similar sized chunks, add to the pans.

Peel your garlic (awesome way to peel a whole head of garlic here! It really works!!), cut cloves in half and add to the pans.

Drizzle each pan with some melted coconut oil, if I had to guess I would say there was about 1 ½ tbsp used on each pan.

Sprinkle with a bit of sea salt, and roast for about 1 ½ hrs in preheated oven. Check every so often, you want to remove them when the veggies are starting to brown and release their juices.

Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before proceeding.

Lifting the parchment carefully, transfer the contents of both pans into a large mixing bowl. Using an immersion blender puree the sauce until it is nice and smooth.  (if you don’t like the seeds, you can strain it at this point, I generally don’t) Add the coconut sugar if desired, and re-season with salt to taste.

Serve immediately or store in mason jars in the fridge for 3-4 days, or in the freezer for 6-8 months, (just remember to leave room for expansion if freezing)

Mine made approx 7 cups of sauce.

Zucchini Spinach Salad

I made this salad for my brothers birthday dinner on the weekend. There was an awesome picture of a similar salad on Pinterest, but when searching for the actual recipe, there were only links to the picture. So, me being me, I invented my own. I think it turned out pretty well. I had the leftovers for lunch the following day and it holds up well. I almost liked it better after it sat, so don’t be afraid to make it in advance!  Feel free to use any feta you like, but I highly recommend using the Raw Sheep's Milk Feta from Best Baa, it is my favourite feta EVER!!

Zucchini Spinach Salad

Salad:

6 cups organic baby spinach, lightly packed

1 medium organic zucchini, sliced thin

1/3 cup chopped fresh organic basil

½ cup toasted organic pumpkin seeds

½ cup dried organic, juice sweetened cranberries

2/3 cup Best Baa Raw Sheep Milk Feta, crumbled (or feta of choice)

Dressing:

1/3 cup organic olive oil

Juice of ½ an organic lemon

3 Tbsp rice wine vinegar (or white balsamic)

½ tsp Herbamare or sea salt

1 tsp ground black pepper

I used my spirulizer to get
the zucchini nice and thin, you
could also use a mandolin or
a vegetable peeler to get
nice thin slices!

Toss the salad ingredients together in a large bowl.

In a small bowl, combine dressing ingredients, and toss well with combined salad ingredients.

Serve right away, or refrigerate till needed, up to 8 hrs.